Search results for: suspension systems

Authors: Opal Giulianelli, Pegah Zamani

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Sustainable food has become a frequently debated topic in recent years due to a consumer push for environmentally sustainable food. While some research works on improving the monoculture farm systems that are currently in use, others focus on expanding the definition of sustainable food systems. This research looks at those concepts of alternative food systems applied to a more extensive city system. The goal is to create a theoretical site plan that could be implemented in emerging cities and other urban environments. This site plan combines the ideas of environmentally sustainable food development, such as food forests, urban farming, and community gardens. This would represent one part of a larger sustainable food system that can be altered depending on the environment or the people it is serving. However, this research is being carried out with the southeast United States in mind and, therefore, may prove difficult to apply to other regions, especially those of radically different climates.

Keywords: alternative food systems, urban design, food forests, aquaponics, hydroponics, food security, food system design

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Authors: Alya Al Ghufli, Kelaithim Al Tunaiji, Sara Al Ali, Khalid Samara

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It is well known that health care systems encompass a variety of key knowledge sources that need to be integrated and shared amongst all types of users to attain higher-levels of motivation and productivity. The development of Health Integrated Systems (HIS) is often seen as a crucial step in strengthening the integration of knowledge to help serve the information needs of health care users. As an emergent economy, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is regarded as a new arrival in the area of health information systems. As a new nation, there may be several challenges in terms of organisational climate and the sufficient skills and knowledge activities for effective use of HIS. In this regard, the lack of coordination, attitudes and practice of health-related systems can eventually result in unnecessary data and generally poor use of the system. This paper includes results from a qualitative preliminary study carried out from a case study investigation in a single large primary health care organisation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) comprising various health care users. The study explored health care user’s perceptions about health integration and the impact it has on their practice. The main sources of information were semi-structured interviews and non-obtrusive observations. The authors conclude by presenting various recommendations for the development of HIS and knowledge activities and areas for further study.

Keywords: health integrated systems, knowledge sharing, knowledge activities, health information systems

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Authors: Jessy Mattar, Mohamad Turk, Maurice Nonus, Nikolai Lebovka, Henri El Zakhem, Eugene Vorobiev

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The effects of electro-stimulation of S. cerevisiae cells in colloidal suspension by Pulsed Electric Fields ‎‎(PEF) with electric field strength E = 20 – 2000 V.cm-1 and effective PEF treatment time tPEF = 10^−5 – 1 s were ‎investigated. The applied experimental procedure includes variations in the preliminary fermentation time and ‎electro-stimulation by PEF-treatment. Plate counting was performed.‎ At relatively high electric fields (E ≥ 1000 V.cm-1) and moderate PEF treatment time (tPEF > 100 µs), the ‎extraction of ionic components from yeast was observed by conductivity measurements, which can be related to ‎electroporation of cell membranes. Cell counting revealed a dependency of the colonies’ size on the time of ‎preliminary fermentation tf and the power consumption W, however no dependencies were noticeable by varying the initial yeast concentration in the treated suspensions.‎

Keywords: intensification, yeast, fermentation, electroporation, biotechnology

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Authors: Thuy Hang Le

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Traditional agroforestry systems are land-use practices still widespread in tropical and subtropical countries, while in Europe have significantly decreased due to land-use intensification, land abandonment, and urbanization. Nevertheless, scientific evidence reveals that traditional agroforestry systems significantly support biodiversity and ecosystem services and may positively contribute to socioeconomic rural regional development. We worked out a review that follows the PRISMA approach and compiled comprehensive information on traditional agroforestry systems in Europe. Based on the differentiation of different land-use systems, also considering the agricultural as well as forestry components, we compiled information regarding current distribution, management (agrodiversity), biodiversity and agrobiodiversity, ecosystem and landscape services, threats, and restoration initiatives. From a total of 3,304 studies that dealt with agroforestry systems in Europe, both “modern” (e.g., buffer strip) and “traditional” (e.g., meadow orchards), we filtered out 158 studies from 35 European countries which represent the basis for in-depth investigation. We found, for example, that the traditional pastoral agroforestry system in the Mediterranean region, the so-called Dehesa, can harbor up to 300 plant species as well as 238 bird species, of which 134 are breeding birds. With regard to carbon storage, the traditional orchard agroforestry system in Germany stocks ranged between 6.5 and 9.8 Mg C ha−1, showing significantly higher values compared to an intensively used grassland with around 3.4 to 6.7 Mg C ha−1. With the remarkably high benefit for biodiversity and ecosystem services provided, the important role and multifunctionality of traditional agroforestry systems in Europe should be acknowledged and promoted.

Keywords: biodiversity, ecosystem services, landscape services, traditional agroforestry systems

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Authors: Miroslav Popelka, Jakub Nožička

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In this paper we deal with using Lego Mindstorms in simulation of robotic systems with respect to cost reduction. Lego Mindstorms kit contains broad variety of hardware components which are required to simulate, program and test the robotics systems in practice. Algorithm programming went in development environment supplied together with Lego kit as in programming language C# as well. Algorithm following the line, which we dealt with in this paper, uses theoretical findings from area of controlling circuits. PID controller has been chosen as controlling circuit whose individual components were experimentally adjusted for optimal motion of robot tracking the line. Data which are determined to process by algorithm are collected by sensors which scan the interface between black and white surfaces followed by robot. Based on discovered facts Lego Mindstorms can be considered for low-cost and capable kit to simulate real robotics systems.

Keywords: LEGO Mindstorms, PID controller, low-cost robotics systems, line follower, sensors, programming language C#, EV3 Home Edition Software

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Authors: Qifei Jing, Vadim V. Silberschmidt, Lin Li, ZhiLi Dong

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Graphene oxide (GO) was chemically functionalized to prepare polyurethane (PU) composites with improved mechanical and thermal properties. In order to achieve a well exfoliated and stable GO suspension in an organic solvent (dimethylformamide, DMF), 4, 4′- methylenebis(phenyl isocyanate) and polycaprolactone diol, which were the two monomers for synthesizing PU, were selectively used to functionalize GO. The obtained functionalized GO (FGO) could form homogeneous dispersions in DMF solvent and the PU matrix, as well as provide a good compatibility with the PU matrix. The most efficient improvement of mechanical properties was achieved when 0.4 wt% FGO was added into the PU matrix, showing increases in the tensile stress, elongation at break and toughness by 34.2%, 27.6% and 64.5%, respectively, compared with those of PU. Regarding the thermal stability, PU filled with 1 wt% FGO showed the largest extent of improvement with T2% and T50% (the temperatures at which 2% and 50% weight-loss happened) 16 °C and 21 °C higher than those of PU, respectively. The significant improvement in both mechanical properties and thermal stability of FGO/PU composites should be attributed to the homogeneous dispersion of FGO in the PU matrix and strong interfacial interaction between them.

Keywords: composite, dispersion, graphene oxide, polyurethane

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Authors: Ramli Nazir, Hossein Moayedi

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Soil confinement systems serve as effective solutions to any erosion control project. Various confinements systems, namely triangular, circular and rectangular with the size of 50, 100, and 150 mm, and with a depth of 10 mm, were embedded in soil samples at slope angle of 60°. The observed soil mass losses for the confined soil systems were much smaller than those from unconfined system. As a result, the size of confinement and rainfall intensity have a direct effect on the soil mass loss. The triangular and rectangular confinement systems showed the lowest and highest soil loss masses, respectively. The slopes also failed much faster in the unconfined system than in the confined slope.

Keywords: erosion control, soil confinement, soil erosion, slope stability

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Authors: Hycham Aboutaleb, Bruno Monsuez

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Current systems' complexity has reached a degree that requires addressing conception and design issues while taking into account environmental, operational, social, legal, and financial aspects. Therefore, one of the main challenges is the way complex systems are specified and designed. The exponentially growing effort, cost, and time investment of complex systems in modeling phase emphasize the need for a paradigm, a framework, and an environment to handle the system model complexity. For that, it is necessary to understand the expectations of the human user of the model and his limits. This paper presents a generic framework for designing complex systems, highlights the requirements a system model needs to fulfill to meet human user expectations, and suggests a graph-based formalism for modeling complex systems. Finally, a set of transformations are defined to handle the model complexity.

Keywords: higraph-based, formalism, system engineering paradigm, modeling requirements, graph-based transformations

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Authors: Tahereh Talebi, Reza Ghomashchi, Pejman Talemi, Sima Aminorroaya

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A high quality crack-free film of Bi₂Te₃ material has been deposited for the first time using electrophoretic deposition (EPD) and microstructures of various films have been investigated. One of the most important thermoelectric (TE) applications is Bi₂Te₃ to manufacture TE generators (TEG) which can convert waste heat into electricity targeting the global warming issue. However, the high cost of the manufacturing process of TEGs keeps them expensive and out of reach for commercialization. Therefore, utilizing EPD as a simple and cost-effective method will open new opportunities for TEG’s commercialization. This method has been recently used for advanced materials such as microelectronics and has attracted a lot of attention from both scientists and industry. In this study, the effect of media of suspensions has been investigated on the quality of the deposited films as well as their microstructure. In summary, finding an appropriate suspension is a critical step for a successful EPD process and has an important effect on both the film’s quality and its future properties.

Keywords: Bi2Te3, electrical conductivity, electrophoretic deposition, thermoelectric materials, thick films

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Authors: Naci Kalkan, Ihsan Dagtekin

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This research presents the design and analysis of solar air-conditioning systems particularly solar chimney which is a passive strategy for natural ventilation, and demonstrates the structures of these systems’ using Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) and finally compares the results with several examples, which have been studied experimentally and carried out previously. In order to improve the performance of solar chimney system, highly efficient sub-system components are considered for the design. The general purpose of the research is to understand how efficiently solar chimney systems generate cooling, and is to improve the efficient of such systems for integration with existing and future domestic buildings.

Keywords: active and passive solar technologies, solar cooling system, solar chimney, natural ventilation, cavity depth, CFD models for solar chimney

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Authors: N. F. F. Ebecken, G. C. Pereira

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Although networks provide a powerful approach to the study of a wide variety of ecological systems, their formulation usually does not include various types of interactions, interactions that vary in space and time, and interconnected systems such as networks. The emerging field of 'multilayer networks' provides a natural framework for extending ecological systems analysis to include these multiple layers of complexity as it specifically allows for differentiation and modeling of intralayer and interlayer connectivity. The structure provides a set of concepts and tools that can be adapted and applied to the ecology, facilitating research in high dimensionality, heterogeneous systems in nature. Here, ecological multilayer networks are formally defined based on a review of prior and related approaches, illustrates their application and potential with existing data analyzes, and discusses limitations, challenges, and future applications. The integration of multilayer network theory into ecology offers a largely untapped potential to further address ecological complexity, to finally provide new theoretical and empirical insights into the architecture and dynamics of ecological systems.

Keywords: ecological networks, multilayered networks, sea ecology, Brazilian Coastal Area

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Authors: Dana Alghool, Tarek ElMekkawy, Mohamed Haouari, Adel Elomari

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District cooling systems have captured the attentions of many researchers recently due to the enormous benefits offered by such system in comparison with traditional cooling technologies. It is considered a major component of urban cities due to the significant reduction of energy consumption. This paper aims to find the optimal design and operation of district cooling systems by developing a mixed integer linear programming model to minimize the annual total system cost and satisfy the end-user cooling demand. The proposed model is experimented with different cooling demand scenarios. The results of the very high cooling demand scenario are only presented in this paper. A sensitivity analysis on different parameters of the model was performed.

Keywords: Annual Cooling Demand, Compression Chiller, Mathematical Modeling, District Cooling Systems, Optimization

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Authors: Dong Sang Yoo

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The problem of finding control laws for underactuated systems has attracted growing attention since these systems are characterized by the fact that they have fewer actuators than the degrees of freedom to be controlled. The acrobot, which is a planar two-link robotic arm in the vertical plane with an actuator at the elbow but no actuator at the shoulder, is a representative of underactuated systems. In this paper, the dynamic model of the acrobot is implemented using Mathworks’ Simscape. And the sliding mode control is constructed using MATLAB and Simulink.

Keywords: acrobot, MATLAB and simulink, sliding mode control, underactuated system

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Authors: Harald Lang, Michael Bader, A. Buchroithner

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Holistic methods covering the development process as a whole – e.g. systems engineering – have established themselves in product design. However, technical product optimization, representing improvements in efficiency and/or minimization of loss, usually applies to single components of a system. A holistic approach is being defined based on a hierarchical point of view of systems engineering. This is subsequently presented using the example of an electromechanical flywheel energy storage system for automotive applications.

Keywords: design, product development, product optimization, systems engineering

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Authors: Hamed Sarbazy, Zohre Gholipour Haftkhani, Ali Safari, Pejman Hosseiniun

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Scientific and industrial progress in the past two decades has resulted in energy distribution systems based on power electronics, as an enabling technology in various industries and building management systems can be considered. Grading and standardization module power electronics systems and its use in a distributed control system, a strategy for overcoming the limitations of using this system. The purpose of this paper is to investigate strategies for scheduling and control structure of standard modules is a power electronic systems. This paper introduces the classical control methods and disadvantages of these methods will be discussed, The hierarchical control as a mechanism for distributed control structure of the classification module explains. The different levels of control and communication between these levels are fully introduced. Also continue to standardize software distribution system control structure is discussed. Finally, as an example, the control structure will be presented in a DC distribution system.

Keywords: application management, hardware management, power electronics, building blocks

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Authors: Ali Afaghi, Sehraneh Ghaemi

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The coordination of the multi-agent systems has been one of the interesting topic in recent years, because of its potential applications in many branches of science and engineering such as sensor networks, flocking, underwater vehicles and etc. In the most of the related studies, it is assumed that the dynamics of the multi-agent systems are integer-order and linear and the multi-agent systems with the fractional-order nonlinear dynamics are rarely considered. However many phenomena in nature cannot be described within integer-order and linear characteristics. This paper investigates the leader-following consensus problem for a class of nonlinear fractional-order multi-agent systems based on observer-based cooperative control. In the system, the dynamics of each follower and leader are nonlinear. For a multi-agent system with fixed directed topology firstly, an observer-based consensus protocol is proposed based on the relative observer states of neighboring agents. Secondly, based on the property of the stability theory of fractional-order system, some sufficient conditions are presented for the asymptotical stability of the observer-based fractional-order control systems. The proposed method is applied on a five-agent system with the fractional-order nonlinear dynamics and unavailable states. The simulation example shows that the proposed scenario results in the good performance and can be used in many practical applications.

Keywords: fractional-order multi-agent systems, leader-following consensus, nonlinear dynamics, directed graphs

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Authors: Samara E., Kilintzis P., Katsoras E., Martinidis G.

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Regions play an important role in the global economy by driving research and innovation policies through a major tool, the Regional Innovation System (RIS). RIS is a social system that encompasses the systematic interaction of the various organizations that comprise it in order to improve local knowledge and innovation. This article describes the methodological framework for developing and validating a RIS model utilizing system dynamics. This model focuses on the functional structure of the RIS, separating it in six diverse, interacting sub-systems.

Keywords: innovations, regional development, systems thinking, social system

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Authors: M. Ezati Kooshki , H. Pourmohamad

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Leaf spring dampers are used for commercial vehicles and heavy tracks. The main function of this damper in these vehicles is protection against damage and providing comfort for drivers by creating suspension between road and vehicle. This paper presents a new device, circular leaf spring damper, which is frequently used on vehicles, aiming to gain seismic protection of structures. Finite element analyses were conducted on several one-story structures using finite element software (Abaqus, v6.10-1). The time history analysis was conducted on the records of Kobe (1995) and San Fernando (1971) ground motions to demonstrate the advantages of using leaf spring in structures as compared to simple bracing system. This paper also suggests extending the use of this damper in structures, considering its large control force despite high cycle fatigue properties and low prices.

Keywords: bracing system, finite element analysis, leaf spring, seismic protection, time history analysis

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Authors: Sergo Tsiramua, Sulkhan Sulkhanishvili, Elisabed Asabashvili, Lazare Kvirtia

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The paper presents logical-probabilistic methods, models, and algorithms for reliability assessment of complex systems, based on which a web application for structural analysis and reliability assessment of systems was created. It is important to design systems based on structural analysis, research, and evaluation of efficiency indicators. One of the important efficiency criteria is the reliability of the system, which depends on the components of the structure. Quantifying the reliability of large-scale systems is a computationally complex process, and it is advisable to perform it with the help of a computer. Logical-probabilistic modeling is one of the effective means of describing the structure of a complex system and quantitatively evaluating its reliability, which was the basis of our application. The reliability assessment process included the following stages, which were reflected in the application: 1) Construction of a graphical scheme of the structural reliability of the system; 2) Transformation of the graphic scheme into a logical representation and modeling of the shortest ways of successful functioning of the system; 3) Description of system operability condition with logical function in the form of disjunctive normal form (DNF); 4) Transformation of DNF into orthogonal disjunction normal form (ODNF) using the orthogonalization algorithm; 5) Replacing logical elements with probabilistic elements in ODNF, obtaining a reliability estimation polynomial and quantifying reliability; 6) Calculation of “weights” of elements of system. Using the logical-probabilistic methods, models and algorithms discussed in the paper, a special software was created, by means of which a quantitative assessment of the reliability of systems of a complex structure is produced. As a result, structural analysis of systems, research, and designing of optimal structure systems are carried out.

Keywords: complex systems, logical-probabilistic methods, orthogonalization algorithm, reliability of systems, “weights” of elements

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Authors: Yann Jean Tan, Hui Meng Er, Choy Sin Lee, Shew Fung Wong, Wen Huei Lim

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Griseofulvin is a long standing fungistatic agent against dermatophytosis. Nevertheless, it has several drawbacks such as poor and highly variable bio availability, long duration of treatment, systemic side effects and drug interactions. Targeted treatment for the superficial skin infection, dermatophytosis via topical route could be beneficial. Nevertheless, griseofulvin is only available in the form of oral preparation. Hence, it generates interest in developing a topical formulation for griseofulvin, by using lipid nano particle as the vehicle. Lipid nanoparticle is a submicron colloidal carrier with a core that is solid in nature (lipid). It has combined advantages of various traditional carriers and is a promising vehicle for topical delivery. The griseofulvin loaded lipid nano particles produced using high pressure homogenization method were characterized and investigated for its skin targeting effect in vitro. It has a mean particle size of 179.8±4.9 nm with polydispersity index of 0.306±0.011. Besides, it showed higher skin permeation and better skin targeting effect compared to the griseofulvin suspension.

Keywords: lipid nanoparticles, griseofulvin, topical, dermatophytosis

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Authors: Abdelkader Djehiche, Mostefa Gafsi, Henri Bertin, Aziz Omari

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The flows of colloidal suspensions in porous media find many applications in fields such as Petroleum, Hydraulic engineering, deep-bed filtration. For each application, the scientific problems can be summarized the flow in porous medium of a colloidal suspension whose particles having characteristic dimension is considerable in comparison with the pores dimension. In certain cases, one can observe a deposit of particles on the surface of the pores which results in a significant modification in the physical properties of the porous medium. The objective of our study is to use a non-destructive experimental method, the attenuation of g-rays, to study the influence of the number of Peclet on the deposit of latex particles in a consolidated porous medium. The first results obtained show a good agreement between local and global measurements of the deposit of the particles in porous medium. The deposit takes place in a progressive way along the porous medium and leads to a monolayer deposit of which the average thickness is of about the size diameter of the colloidal particles.

Keywords: colloid, gamma ray, Peclet number, permeability, porous medium

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Authors: Jung-Yoon Lee, Jongmun Kim, Hyo-Jun Chang, Jung-Min Kim

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People’s tendency towards living in apartment houses is increasing in a densely populated country. However, some residents living in apartment houses are bothered by noise coming from the houses above. In order to reduce noise pollution, the communities are increasingly imposing a bylaw, including the limitation of floor impact sound, minimum thickness of floors, and floor soundproofing solutions. This research effort focused on the specific long-time deflection of resilient materials in the floor sound insulation systems of apartment houses. The experimental program consisted of testing nine floor sound insulation specimens subjected to sustained load for 45 days. Two main parameters were considered in the experimental investigation: three types of resilient materials and magnitudes of loads. The test results indicated that the structural behavior of the floor sound insulation systems under long-time load was quite different from that the systems under short-time load. The loading period increased the deflection of floor sound insulation systems and the increasing rate of the long-time deflection of the systems with ethylene vinyl acetate was smaller than that of the systems with low density ethylene polystyrene.

Keywords: resilient materials, floor sound insulation systems, long-time deflection, sustained load, noise pollution

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Authors: Abdullah E. Al-Mazrooei

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In this paper, we present a new kind of the bilinear systems in the form of state space model. The evolution of this system depends on the product of state vector by its self. The well known Lotak Volterra and Lorenz models are special cases of this new model. We also present here a generalization of Kalman filter which is suitable to work with the new bilinear model. An application to real measurements is introduced to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.

Keywords: bilinear systems, state space model, Kalman filter, application, models

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Authors: Preeti Makkar, R. C. Agarwala, Vijaya Agarwala

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The present study focuses on the preparation of Al2O3 nanoparticles by top down approach i.e. mechanical milling using high energy planetary ball mill at 250 rpm for 40h. The milled Al2O3 nanoparticles are then used as the second phase to develop electroless (EL) Ni-P- Al2O3 nanocomposite coatings on mild steel substrate. An alkaline bath was used with a suspension of Al2O3 particles (4 g/L) for the synthesis of Ni-P-Al2O3 nanocomposite coating. The surface morphology, size range and phase analysis of as-prepared Al2O3 particles and the coatings were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). The coatings were heat treated at 400°C for 1h in argon atmosphere and the hardness of the nanocomposite coatings was investigated with respect to Ni-P before and after heat treatment. The results showed that as milled Al2O3 nanoparticles exhibit irregular shaped and size ranges around 40-45 nm. The Al2O3 particles are uniformly distributed in Ni-P matrix. The microhardness of the coatings is found to be significantly improved after heat treatment (1126 VHN).

Keywords: Electroless (EL), Ni-P-Al2O3, nanocomposite, mechanical milling, microhardness

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Authors: Oriahi Love Ndidi

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High concentration photovoltaic promises a more efficient, higher power output than traditional photovoltaic modules. One of the driving forces of this high system efficiency has been the continuous improvement of III-V multi-junction solar cell efficiencies. Multi-junction solar cells built from III-V semiconductors are being evaluated globally in concentrated photovoltaic systems designed to supplement electricity generation for utility companies. The high efficiency of this III-V multi-junction concentrator cells, with demonstrated efficiency over 40 percent since 2006, strongly reduces the cost of concentrated photovoltaic systems, and makes III-V multi-junction cells the technology of choice for most concentrator systems today.

Keywords: cost of multi-junction solar cell, efficiency, photovoltaic systems, reliability

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Authors: Saurabh Gupta, Vanshdeep Parmar, Sri Harsha Reddy Yelly, Michele Baker, Elizabeth Bigler, Kunhee Choi

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It is known that the adoption of solar powered LED highway lighting systems or sensory LED highway lighting systems can dramatically reduce energy consumption by 55 percent when compared to conventional on-grid High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lamps that are widely applied to most highways. However, an initial high installation cost for building the infrastructure of solar photovoltaic devices hampers a wider adoption of such technologies. This research aims to examine currently available state-of-the-art solar photovoltaic and sensory technologies, identify major obstacles, and analyze each technology to create a benchmarking metrics from the benefit-cost analysis perspective. The on-grid HPS lighting systems will serve as the baseline for this study to compare it with other lighting alternatives such as solar and sensory LED lighting systems. This research will test the validity of the research hypothesis that alternative LED lighting systems produce more favorable benefit-cost ratios and the added initial investment costs are recouped by the savings in the operation and maintenance cost. The payback period of the excess investment and projected savings over the life-cycle of the selected lighting systems will be analyzed by utilizing the concept of Net Present Value (NPV). Researchers believe that if this study validates the research hypothesis, it can promote a wider adoption of alternative lighting systems that will eventually save millions of taxpayer dollars in the long-run.

Keywords: lighting systems, sensory and solar PV, benefit cost analysis, net present value

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Authors: Pedro Esteban

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Planning a hybrid power system (HPS) that integrates renewable generation sources, non-renewable generation sources and energy storage, involves determining the capacity and size of various components to be used in the system to be able to supply reliable electricity to the connected load as required. Nowadays it is very common to integrate solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants for renewable generation as part of HPS. The solar PV system is usually balanced via a second form of generation (renewable such as wind power or using fossil fuels such as a diesel generator) or an energy storage system (such as a battery bank). Hybrid power systems can also provide other forms of power such as heat for some applications. Modern hybrid power systems combine power generation and energy storage technologies together with real-time energy management and innovative power quality and energy efficiency improvement functionalities. These systems help customers achieve targets for clean energy generation, they add flexibility to the electrical grid, and they optimize the installation by improving its power quality and energy efficiency.

Keywords: microgrids, hybrid power systems, energy storage, grid code compliance

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Authors: L. Kiefer, C. Richter, G. Reinhart

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The uprising complexity in production systems due to an increasing amount of variants up to customer innovated products leads to requirements that hierarchical control systems are not able to fulfil. Therefore, factory planners can install autonomous manufacturing systems. The fundamental requirement for an autonomous control is the identification of objects within production systems. In this approach an attribute-based identification is focused for avoiding dose-dependent identification costs. Instead of using an identification mark (ID) like a radio frequency identification (RFID)-Tag, an object type is directly identified by its attributes. To facilitate that it’s recommended to include the identification and the corresponding sensors within handling processes, which connect all manufacturing processes and therefore ensure a high identification rate and reduce blind spots. The presented methodology reduces the individual effort to integrate identification processes in handling systems. First, suitable object attributes and sensor systems for object identification in a production environment are defined. By categorising these sensor systems as well as handling systems, it is possible to match them universal within a compatibility matrix. Based on that compatibility further requirements like identification time are analysed, which decide whether the combination of handling and sensor system is well suited for parallel handling and identification within an autonomous control. By analysing a list of more than thousand possible attributes, first investigations have shown, that five main characteristics (weight, form, colour, amount, and position of subattributes as drillings) are sufficient for an integrable identification. This knowledge limits the variety of identification systems and leads to a manageable complexity within the selection process. Besides the procedure, several tools, as an example a sensor pool are presented. These tools include the generated specific expert knowledge and simplify the selection. The primary tool is a pool of preconfigured identification processes depending on the chosen combination of sensor and handling device. By following the defined procedure and using the created tools, even laypeople out of other scientific fields can choose an appropriate combination of handling devices and sensors which enable parallel handling and identification.

Keywords: agent systems, autonomous control, handling systems, identification

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Authors: M. Y. Waziri, M. A. Aliyu

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The paper proposes an approach to improve the performance of Broyden’s method for solving systems of nonlinear equations. In this work, we consider the information from two preceding iterates rather than a single preceding iterate to update the Broyden’s matrix that will produce a better approximation of the Jacobian matrix in each iteration. The numerical results verify that the proposed method has clearly enhanced the numerical performance of Broyden’s Method.

Keywords: mulit-step Broyden, nonlinear systems of equations, computational efficiency, iterate

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Authors: Sokol Isaraj, Lorela Bendo

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Scars resulting from surgery, injury, or burns have a physical and psychological impact on the affected patient. Although a number of treatments are available, nano fat grafting is an effective treatment for scars. Nano fat is a liquid suspension rich in stem cells obtained by mechanical emulsification. Nano fat grafting was performed in 10 cases to correct rhytides, surgical scars, and post-burn scars between January 2022 and April 2022. Fat was aspirated from the lower abdomen or trochanteric region. After emulsification and filtration protocol, the resulting nano fat liquid was injected intradermally and subdermally. All patients filled out a questionnaire at three months post-treatment, which consisted of questions regarding the grade of improvement of skin and recommendation of the procedure. The clinical results were apparent between 2 and 3 weeks after the treatment. All patients confirmed an improvement in skin texture and quality. The most significant improvement was seen in pigmentation and pliability. No complications were reported. Nano fat seems to be a safe and effective treatment in scar treatment and skin rejuvenation.

Keywords: fat grafting, fat transfer, micro fat, nano fat

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